Us

They estimate the known universe is 13.773 billion years old; our own solar system is 5 billion; while the Earth is 4.6 billion. Compared to that “deep time,” mankind hasn’t been around long — not much more than a very tiny fraction of 1 second.

Look at the sky on a clear, pitch-black night, and you will see an untold number of stars in that sliver of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Then multiple that small sliver so that it includes all the slivers and so all the myriad stars in our galaxy, but realize that as many stars as that may be — and it is a gigantic number — there are even more whole galaxies than that in the universe.

We are very much taken with ourselves, but, in the total scheme of things, mankind isn’t even so much as a triviality. And we may not even get to that 1 second mark either, through extinction, either by our own foolishness or when our sun begins to expand and reduces the pinprick earth to a cinder.

Yet parents adore their children; young men still aspire to greatness; and old men share their wisdom earned from the rough and tumble of experience.

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Published by Henry Barnard

I am a voracious reader and also enjoy writing. I often have a very different point of view than the popular one. I do see value in debate, and thought it might add to the public debate on controversial issues if I were to express my contrarian opinions. I also started keeping my poems recently (I've written little pieces my whole adult life but never kept any); and I've been a photographer now for over 25 years. So I will be adding an occasional poem and hopefully interesting photograph to the blog along the way, just to spice things up.
View all posts by Henry Barnard